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AMD Ryzen 3 – Everything We Know So Far

So we know that AMD has had some success with their latest Ryzen 7 and 5 line up of CPUs but now they’re going in strong at the lower end of the market with the yet to be announced Ryzen 3 series. So here is everything we’ve found out so far.

The Ryzen 3 CPUs will likely close the gap and fill in the missing designations in AMDs line up. These are likely to be the 1100, 1200 and the 1200x. This would make sense as these would nicely round out the full series 3 through to 7.

According to wikichip.org there is already some information about the 1100 and 1200x.

The CPUs are set to be on the 14nm process with 4 cores and 4 threads. They’re likely to utilise 8MB of L3 cache and 2MB L2 cache with the 1100 having a stock frequency of 3.2GHz and the 1200x having a stock of 3.4GHz. The 1100 is said to turbo to 3.5GHz and the 1200x is set to turbo to 3.8GHz. Both with have a TDP of 65W and support up to 64GB of DDR4 memory (1). These specs look really promising and set be set to take the fight to Intels i3 line up of CPUs. These should hopefully be announced sometime in Q3.

Next up is a different source that showed some information about the 1200. This again will be based on the 14nm process with 4 cores and 4 threads. The stock frequency is set to be 3.1GHz and its should turbo to 3.4GHz. Its also going to have a TDP of 65W (2), so with a good cooler you should be able to get a decent overclock. This will also have 8MB of L3 cache and 2MB of L2 cache. (3)

Pricing for these CPUs are a bit scarce but a site called PCGamer.com has a few possible leaked prices. The 1100 is apparently set to cost $129 and the 1200x is said to cost $149 (4). Again these are not confirmed so for more official pricing and information we’ll have to wait for AMD to announce them sometime in Q3.

(4)

But as these are, they are set to do battle with the Pentium and i3 processors. I personally think they should do well as the i3 and Pentium are only dual core whereas the 3 series will be a full four core. This will be advantageous as more programmes and games are shifting towards the use of utilising more than two cores. So if you’re in the market for a budget CPU for gaming as well as productivity, these could just be what you’re looking for. On the flip side Intels offerings usually do better for single core tasks and always score better, but again more things are being better optimised for more cores meaning single core tasks will soon be a thing of the past. Meaning that Ryzen is a better option for longevity and for a more future proof system.

But as always its a safe bet to wait for confirmed information as well as the relevant real world testing and benchmarks.